How Corsair makes and tests stuff (lots of pics, dial-up beware)

Redbeard

Official Corsair Rep.
Joined
Nov 3, 2005
Messages
1,859
Not that anybody here is still on dial-up, but you know...

I took some pictures earlier today, thought you guys might be interested.

Our manufacturing floor is split up into two main sections.

The Manufacturing Area
floor1.jpg


and
The Testing Area
floor2.jpg


In the manufacturing area, we have huge ovens that bake the ICs onto the module. The way that DDR2 works is this. You have an IC package (the actual RAM) that sits on top of tiny, solid solder balls, which sit on top of a PCB that has appropriate divots for the balls to sit in. You then pass them through an oven, and the oven melts the solder to fasten the IC to the PCB. The oven does not get hot enough to damage the IC, just hot enough to melt the solder.

Here's the oven entrance
ovenenter.jpg

(you can see the bare PCBs on the right, getting ready to be placed on the conveyor belt to go into the oven)

Here's the oven exit
ovenexit.jpg

When the modules are done, they slide down this ramp and hang out to cool off for a bit before they are tested individually and then sent back to have heatspreaders attached.

Once they're out of the oven, we place them on carts and wheel them over to test.
Here's some PRO modules that are ready to test
xmspros.jpg


They are placed in a frame and heatspreaders are attached by hand.
Here's one of our line workers attaching some heatspreaders with the TIM
xmspros2.jpg


Those of you familiar with our line know that the PRO modules have LED lights on top.
The PRO heatspreaders are specially designed to allow the light to shine through
xmspros3.jpg



Over on the "test" side of things, we use a few high-end boards.
Like these Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxes
m2n32.jpg


m2n322.jpg


Or these EVGA 680i SLI boards
evga.jpg



We also screen modules with a known-good module to make sure dual channel works
9136.jpg


If something fails test, we can usually determine what it is. Sometimes it's something as simple as a bad solder point or a failing single IC. No sense in throwing away a $200 module for a $10 IC, right?

We have people that re-work modules with known-good parts.
In this picture, she's using heat to melt the solder under a new IC.
rework.jpg



Our RMA guys love their jobs
rmaguys.jpg


Except when people cause intentional damage
damage.jpg


For those of you guys interested in our PSUs, here's our Chroma tester (right) and one of our ovens (blue thing), where we test the PSUs at their rated temp specs
ovenchroma.jpg



And here's a smattering of pics of modules, in case you guys wanted to see them:

Dominators before and after heatsink attachment
dom.jpg


dom2.jpg


dom3.jpg


dom4.jpg


dom5.jpg

The pink bags with paperwork in them are to tell the floor guys where each set goes and how it's to be handled. Some are 6400C3, some are 8888C4, etc. They're usually labeled at this point as well.

Here's XMS after labeling. These are ready to be packaged and shipped.

xms.jpg


xms2.jpg


xms3.jpg



I'll answer questions you guys had if anything comes up. I just thought you might be interested in seeing this stuff.
 
That was a really nice walkthrough of your manufacturing area. I love seeing how things are made.

I had a question about dust. How do you all deal with it and does it ever "get in the way" of the assembly process? I noticed on some shots of the test motherboards there was a small bit of accumulation. Not much of course, but some.
 
the things I would do with access to that place.......
 
That was a really nice walkthrough of your manufacturing area. I love seeing how things are made.

I had a question about dust. How do you all deal with it and does it ever "get in the way" of the assembly process? I noticed on some shots of the test motherboards there was a small bit of accumulation. Not much of course, but some.

To be honest, dust doesn't do too much to have it sitting on a few motherboards, and the memory and PCBs are in and out of the factory so fast that there's almost no time for dust to accumulate on them. So our solution right now is to use compressed air to blow off the dust from the motherboards when necessary and other than that, we don't have too much of a problem. The machines are maintained and cleaned regularly to make sure there is no dust accumulation, but most of the high-risk parts are sealed anyway.


the things I would do with access to that place.......

If you're talking about burglary, this is why this building is guarded around the clock by angry dogs chained to even angrier dogs who are chained to gorillas we don't even feed.
 
If you're talking about burglary, this is why this building is guarded around the clock by angry dogs chained to even angrier dogs who are chained to gorillas we don't even feed.

That doesn't scare me, unless the mouths of those dogs are filled with bees and when they bark they shoot bees at you ;)
 
If you're talking about burglary, this is why this building is guarded around the clock by angry dogs chained to even angrier dogs who are chained to gorillas we don't even feed.


LMAO...

that made me laugh

and an excellent post there.. I always wonder how stuff is made.. which you rarely get to see...

but man thats alot of ram
 
Not that anybody here is still on dial-up, but you know...
.
.
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I'll answer questions you guys had if anything comes up. I just thought you might be interested in seeing this stuff.

I am forced to use dial-up at home. Only thing available.

However, I am at work now sooooo...thanks for the pics! Good to see what's happening behind the scenes.
 
man you made my day. all of those test setups made my drool....:D
everything looks so sexy and awesome!

nice job and great products CORSAIR!!!!!!!! ;) :cool: :D :)
 
Very cool to see how you guys do it and make your awesome products!

I love to get the behind the scenes look as well.

Also nice to see a technical electronics line in the USA, so many are in China these days.

Just out of curiosity, does the blue have some significance? I noticed that most things in your work areas are blue (tables, chairs, etc.).
 
Just out of curiosity, does the blue have some significance? I noticed that most things in your work areas are blue (tables, chairs, etc.).

ya know, I never noticed, but all the wavesolder machines, ovens, and a lot of the worktables and chairs where blue on our factory floor as well. My theory is that the soothing color keeps the employees from going postal due to the shortage of high quality Micron D9 chips and Joe Blows lack of understanding of the laws of supply and demand and the risk of single sourcing parts. J/K
 
Very cool to see how you guys do it and make your awesome products!

I love to get the behind the scenes look as well.

Also nice to see a technical electronics line in the USA, so many are in China these days.

Just out of curiosity, does the blue have some significance? I noticed that most things in your work areas are blue (tables, chairs, etc.).

Blue is cooler than red.

Okay, not really. That's an interesting question. I know that blue is the color of our logo usually (although it's occasionally been white, black, silver, etc on different products) but I think the ESD smocks are blue because that's just the color they tend to be, I've seen white and blue, mostly. The blue rubber ESD mats are there probably to match those smocks or something.

I am not sure who's in charge of manufacturing color coordination right now, I guess I could ask him or her when I find out. It just seems to be a very common color.
 
I am wondering how often you guys receive ram that was intentionally damaged and what is the excuse they put as to why lol

and what you guys do to those cases
 
So that's where they come from. :) Great pics, I'd love to see more of them.
 
Aztlan calm down, they won't give out your name. :D :D :D


Very nice post Redbeard. Thank you!!!
 
God my pockets would be bulging when I walk out of that place ;) :p

Pretty neat though, I got a Corsair PSU and I love it.
 
I was going to show my modules where they were "born", but my PC won't display anything without them installed, so...:D

Hey, awesome post, great info, I'll be giving a lucky pair of those Dominators a home soon...soon.
 
I am wondering how often you guys receive ram that was intentionally damaged and what is the excuse they put as to why lol

and what you guys do to those cases

Very rarely, that was part of a large sample that got RMAd through a major retailer. Current theory is that somebody bought a set, they didn't overclock as well as he hoped, he damaged them and returned them a few times until he got a set he liked.

When we get damaged modules from an RMA guy, we usually try to determine if it was intentional or if it's a failed part. That's obviously intentional, but sometimes it can be just a blown component or something that makes the memory fail. When it's obvious that somebody did it themselves and is trying to scam us, we send out a couple of big guys in a black van with baseball bats and low IQs. They get a picture of the customer and with the word HURT in big red letters on top of it.
 
When it's obvious that somebody did it themselves and is trying to scam us, we send out a couple of big guys in a black van with baseball bats and low IQs. They get a picture of the customer and with the word HURT in big red letters on top of it.

LOL... and I thought that they were going to send the hungry gorilla's you guys dont even feed :p

btw you should be a comedian ;)
 
Man, awesome post Redbeard! thanks for sharing :D

no pics of 4GB kits in production yet?? ;)
 
Great post... I dig anything who show how stuff is made :D

Continue the good work, you probably won a new customer with me :D
 
Pictures like this make me want to work at the places where my favorite hardware comes from. Thanks for the post Redbeard.
 
Just put my new rig together last night with the 6400C4 modules and I couldn't be happier. Keep up the good work on the posts, components, and the humor!
 
nice pics. I must say that I am surprised by the amount of manual labor involved. I fully expected to see all of this being more of less "fully automated" but it seems that you have still quite a few people working.

The RMA guys love their job, because they have nothing to do? ;)

Are you guys using PCI video cards on your testbeds? Is the other PCI card some form of test module?
 
Are you guys using PCI video cards on your testbeds? Is the other PCI card some form of test module?

Yeah, the other PCI card is an RST Pro2 memory test card. They cost like $600 each or so. It's expensive but it's the only way to really test memory quickly and thoroughly. Memtest86+ is great but it takes a long time to run it and sometimes the results don't correlate well to Windows-based programs.

got any pics of the break room/arcade/company 1080p HD theater? ;)

This isn't a dot-com, we actually do work during the day! Hah.

The closest thing we have to a break room is a vending machine room with free coffee, a soda machine, and a snack machine. But it does have a 27" Panasonic TV from 1995 in there. They had to get it to train and certify some of our manufacturing guys on forklift operation.
 
Very cool !! Thanks for the pictures. Be sure to let us know when you plan on a mfr direct group buy. ;) I'd even happily buy repaired rma stuff. In any case a very cool operation.
 
Really awesome post Redbeard. I've always wondered what the Pro modules looked like with the heat spreaders removed.

I've worked for manufacturing companies before and your facilities look similar to other electronic manufacturers.

In every one of those places, almost everything is blue as well. Not sure why, but most anti-static mats and smocks are all blue. Same with the ovens and other machines.

Oh, if you ever hand out free samples of Dominator PC2-10000 modules, think of me. :)
 
Very awesome post, thanks for all the pictures.

As someone else kinda mentioned, blue is a calming color. There is a reason for most of the furniture to be blue as it helps the employees relax and feel at ease and also lowers metabolism.

Red is an aggressive color and raises metabolism/blood pressure, so it would be rare to find in big companies who have designers who take these things into consideration.

Fun stuff you learn in art class :), if you want to learn more just do a quick google search for color and emotions or something like that, you would probably find a lot of info on what they are all for/do.
 
Redbeard, Very nice Pics........Keep up the good work. As always Corsair Rules.:cool:
 
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